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The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), [4] sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, [5] is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus , though a number of related species ...
Ornithorhynchoidea is a superfamily of mammals containing the only living monotremes, the platypus and the echidnas, as well as their closest fossil relatives, to the exclusion of more primitive fossil monotremes of uncertain affinity.
Family Ornithorhynchidae (platypus) Genus Ornithorhynchus (platypus) Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) Family Tachyglossidae Genus Tachyglossus (short-beaked echidna) Short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) Genus Zaglossus (long-beaked echidnas) Western long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii) Eastern long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bartoni)
The platypus has an average body temperature of about 31 °C (88 °F) rather than the averages of 35 °C (95 °F) for marsupials and 37 °C (99 °F) for placentals. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] Research suggests this has been a gradual adaptation to the harsh, marginal environmental niches in which the few extant monotreme species have managed to survive ...
This contrasts with the modern platypus, where adults are entirely toothless. It has been theorized that the loss of teeth in the platypus was a geologically recent event, occurring only in the Pleistocene (after over 95 million years of tooth presence in the ornithorhynchid lineage) after the migration of the rakali ( Hydromys chrysogaster ...
A platypus bill may look like a duck’s bill, but it has a secret ability. The bill contains receptor cells that detect the electric signals made by all living things. As it swims in the water ...
Male echidnas have non-venomous spurs on the hind feet, similar to the venomous male platypus. [ 15 ] Due to their low metabolism and accompanying stress resistance, echidnas are long-lived for their size; the longest recorded lifespan for a captive echidna is 50 years, with anecdotal accounts of wild individuals reaching 45 years.
In 1997, the classification of mammals was revised by Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell. [10] The Classification of Mammals Above the species level, here referred to as the "McKenna/Bell classification", is a comprehensive work on the systematics, relationships, and occurrences of all mammal taxa, living and extinct, down through the rank of ...